Page 96 of Wicked Salvation

“You don’t understand what you’re doing.”

I round on her. “No, I do. For once, I do.” My voice rises with each sentence. “You lied to me. You both lied. My whole life!” Pain swells all over my body but I need to get this out. “You’ve paraded me like a symbol of virtue while hiding the fact that I’m—what? Some bastard you didn’t have the spine to send away?”

Evelyn’s face twists. “Do you have any idea what happens to illegitimate children in our world? We protected you?—”

“That’s not what her journals say,” I spit. “She was with father first. Butyoustole him from her. She didn’t have the stomach to play the same dirty games you did.” Tears spring from my eyes as Evelyn’s face blurs. “When she realized she was pregnant with me you were already married to father, and because you care so much about your reputation you took me and madeyour own sisterdisappear.”

“You have no idea—” But I cut her again.

“No,” I say, fury boiling over. “You manipulated me into believing I was worthless unless I followed every rule, obeyed every command and prayed the shame away. But the shame was yours. Not mine. You stole your sister’s destiny because you’re nothing more than ajealous hag.”

There’s a long, quivering silence.

Evelyn is facing me. Her fingers twitch. But I’m ready. In fact, Iwanther to try to hit me again. Adrenaline is coursing through every nerve in my body. I feel like I could rip her wide open if I tried.

Then—

“Magnolia and I dated briefly,” my father says, his voice a crack in the tension. He looks like he’s in pain, and it’s so obvious that he’s lying. “I chose to marry your mother, and we adopted you so you could benefit from being a Lockhart.”

“Yes,” Evelyn snaps. “You would have suffered as an illegitimate child, but we took you in so you could experience the luxury of love.”

“Love?” I laugh mockingly. “Who was I loved by? By you? You never touched me if you could help it. You controlled every second of my life like I was some porcelain doll on display. I was your penance, wasn’t I? The price you had to pay for this life.”

I turn to my father, and for the first time in my life, I see him clearly—not as a figurehead, not as Evelyn’s echo, but as a man.

A man hollowed out by silence.

“Where is she?” I demand. “Where is my mother?”

No one answers.

“Answer me!” I scream.

Every bone in my body rattles, but I’m tired of holding back, of making myself smaller, of contorting my every desire into something more palatable. My rage is valid. My anger is true.

I don’t have to make anything I feel digestible.

Who I am is enough.

“You have no idea the sacrifices I made for you. I should have left you with her to die, maybe then?—”

“No,” my father says suddenly, cutting her off. “No more lies, Evelyn.”

We both turn to him.

He looks at her, his eyes as hard as steel. “She deserves the truth.”

Evelyn stares at him like he’s grown another head. “You made meswear…” She huffs. “To protect her. You did all this to protect her.”

“Not like this,” he hisses. “We agreed on our honeymoon that we would tell her one day.”

Ah. That’s why she wanted to marry me off.

He faces me.

Shame creases his features. “Your mother, Magnolia Thompson, is Evelyn’s younger sister. She left England after we adopted you, and we haven’t heard from her in years.”

I feel the ground shift beneath me.